Filmmaker Timothy Woodward Jr. is a member of the DGA (Directors Guild of America), and they aren’t currently on strike. Therefore he was allowed to give this interview. As you will read, he supports everyone on the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
A director trying to find a writer or writers for his next project is similar to someone looking for love. To be a match made in (film) heaven, you have to find the right person. Someone who brings out the best in you, with who you can grow and who has the same visions for the future (for the film or the family). And so director Timothy Woodward Jr. (Studio City) went looking for the right crew and cast for his Til Death Do Us Part, and luckily he found them. When interviewing Woodward Jr., it was clear that this movie, about a bride (Natalie Burn) who feels the murderous consequences of leaving her husband (Ser’Darius Blain) at the altar, was an exhilarating project. According to him, the work of writers Chad Law (The Getback) and Shane Dax Taylor (The Best Man) was:
“A straight-action thriller movie to which I added a lot of horror, comedy elements and gore. That’s because that’s the kind of film that matches my personality and what I like to see on-screen. Sometimes you can’t add things when the script is very locked in. Maybe because of the serious subject matter or because it’s a biopic. In this case, it was just a really fun movie. And I got the opportunity to have fun with it and do whatever I wanted. I had a lot of freedom. So that was awesome!
It’s always harder to get an independent movie like this off the ground because you don’t have a lot of money or time. However, when you feel something will be great, you want to pull it off. And so, with this one, we were lucky to have people who believed in it. We’re fortunate as we get a theatrical release. We’re delighted with it. What I hope the most right now is that people go and see this film because if they do, we might get an opportunity to make a part two. There’s room for that looking at the post-credits scene regarding The University. During the second part, we could delve into that even more.”
You might think that Til Death Do Us Part is similar to Ready or Not, and we don’t blame you. It’s again about a bride who pulls the plug out of the wedding last minute but whose murderous groom and his family/friends aren’t letting her go that easily. The horror theme, the playful lines, the bride performing kick-ass stunts, it’s all there in this movie. So what does set Til Death Do Us Part apart from the others? Let Woodward Jr tell it himself:
“The bride has a major backstory, and we created a whole world for her. It’s not only about the bride leaving the groom. It’s also about her leaving something else behind entirely. It’s very stylized, and there’s a lot more to the movie than what we show in the trailer. We made the trailer look more generic on purpose. When watching the trailer, you would think this movie was about a runaway bride. But there’s a lot more going on than that. There is also the unique start of the film. It starts like a 1990s rom-com where the sky is blue; everybody’s happy and happy music. However, it doesn’t take long before I flip the script. The decision to do this was made right from the beginning.”
But who are the bride, the groom and the guests now we’ve been talking about? We don’t see much of Blain (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) as his groom leaves all the hard work to the best man (Cam Gigandet) and groomsmen. Therefore the main lead in this movie is actually Gigandet (Violent Night). Woodward Jr. said he had “Gigandet in mind as the best man since the beginning. It was just about who could do the character justice”. He also said, “Cam did an amazing job, and I was very fortunate to get him”, and we certainly agree. Gigandet’s performance isn’t only fun and witty but also oozes violence and darkness. We can definitely say the same about Burn, who portrays an absolute badass bride. It was her who played matchmaker as she matched the writers with the director. According to Woodward Jr, it was:
“Natalie who sent me the script because we were looking for something to collaborate on together. And she sent me the script and said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to read this,’ and I opened it, read it, and said, ‘I’m in’.”
Despite that 1990s opening scene, the movie mainly consists of action and violent scenes. Sometimes there’s a glimpse of emotions too. In a film like this, you have to balance them right because if you put too much action and horror in the movie, it might just be an over-the-top horror film, but if you focus too much on the emotions, the scary and thrilling vibe falls flat. Talking about which scenes were the hardest to shoot, the filmmaker said:
“They all had their challenges, and they were all unique and different. The one that we had a lot of fun with was the fighting scenes with Natalie, where she hits people with the golf clubs. That was fun because on the day and, Natalie was like, look, what if I do a back flip off of the bookshelves, and I’m like, yeah, you could do it. We had a lot of fun making that one. It took a lot of time, but it was very cool.”
Speaking of shooting Til Death Do Us Part, the movie almost entirely takes place in and around the remote cabin the bride hides in from the violent men. Having to shoot in only one location comes with its advantages and disadvantages or at least according to Woodward Jr.:
“Shooting in the same location makes it easier as far as lighting goes and because you have your equipment closer to you. It is also harder because you can’t just cut away from something. In another movie, you could cut to a building. However, in this movie, you have this one location, and the continuity has to match up. People have to be in the places where they were before. You have to figure out how to get a character from point A to point B. You have to figure out which way Natalie will take to go across the room without the men seeing her and how she will get from one part of the house to the other. That’s one of the hardest challenges with it.”
Last but not least, the director also shared his support for the ongoing strikes when he told us a bit more about his new projects:
“I support everyone on strike, but luckily, directors aren’t on strike. I’ve got a project I’m attached to, and I got hired to direct a movie based on a famous novel.”
Yes, that answer might be very cryptic and secretive, but so is Til Death Do Us Part. Be sure to read our review of the movie here and check it out for yourselves this weekend.
Til Death Do Us Part is currently playing in theatres courtesy of Cineverse.